Day 4 at the European Muaythai Championships in Prague

Today saw athletes reaching quarter-final and semi-final stage of the European muaythai championships with high-octane bouts in each ring all day for men and women.

There were a number of really close bouts, with the crowd closely watching the screens in the arena to see where the final points lie. Host team Czech Republic were in action five times which kept the home crowd entertained – and for everyone else there was the Cheering War between Turkey , Russia, Ukraine and France all of whom large teams and seemingly endless numbers of songs with them.

In the men’s divisions Belarus’ Dmitry Valent, multiple-time world champion faced Swedish champion Marcus Sundin Lildedorff taking a points win. His team-mate Vital Hurkou, The World Games champion, also moved onto the next round winning against Ivan Grigoriev, last year’s world champion.

Turkey’s Ali Dogan, world champion this year and at The World Games defeated home hero Matous Kohout on points. And Spain’s Kevin Martinez, a medallist at The World Games won against Mehmet Cihan Ceken from Turkey. Mehmet’s father is also his coach, but this time the more experienced athlete from Spain won.

And two former Youth world champions – Eduard Saik (Russia) and Viktoria Ivanets (Ukraine) moved onto the final round of the tournament.

The women’s divisions saw semi-finals at some weights. Among the women going through to the next round were last year’s champion at 54kg Maria Lobo (Portugal), world champion Nili Block (Israel) in a tight battle with Gia Winberg (Finland), Valeriya Drozdova (Russia) and Turkish champion Bediha Tacyildiz.

The 57kg bout between Anaelle Angerville (France) and Natalia Diachkova (Russia) came down to just one point, with the French athlete taking the win – Natalia won the first round, with Anaelle taking the 2nd and 3rd for an exciting win.